The Tavern

I'd like to propose that the way in which mummy curses work be reconsidered.

Currently, if you intend to do the tomb, it is very difficult to near impossible to do without making use of either Kiku, Makh or TSO. The reason? Because you potentially can take tons of damage for simply killing mummies. This mechanic seems to encourage massive stair dancing, particularly on level 3. There are a number of mechanics in the game which are nearly unfair and/or very difficult to avoid: Torment, Smiting, Hellfire, Malmutate, Abyss blobs paralyzing you, Eyes paralyzing you... however, as rough as the worst kinds of things in the game to avoid are, they are still avoidable in some way if only because you manage to destroy the threat quickly enough. The only way to avoid taking damage from mummy curses is to not kill any mummies. I feel that this is an expectation which seems completely unreasonable. Furthermore, this situation seems like it pigeonholes games into either needing specific gods in order to get all runes (and also to clear a complete Zig where mummies appear), or without extremely tedious play constantly trying to retreat from the action to rest. On a level filled with torment and smiting, this is essentially stair dancing rammed down your throat.

I can understand that mummy curses are meant as a sort of draining, wear you down type of effect. I think the stat draining accomplishes that, and that is fine. It is really the effects that do direct damage for destroying the mummy which I take issue with. I think those effects should be changed into something else or simply taken out of the selection of effects.

Currently, if you intend to do the tomb, it is very difficult to near impossible to do without making use of either Kiku, Makh or TSO.

This is just not true. It's not that difficult and it's certainly leagues away from "near impossible" to do Tomb without those gods. Players in 0.21+ that got the golden rune and didn't die in tomb while playing a species without any innate torment resistance:
<gammafunk> !lm * current rune=golden lg:br!=tomb !gr !mu !vp !gh s=god
<Sequell> 868 milestones for * (current rune=golden lg:br!=tomb !gr !mu !vp !gh): 189x The Shining One, 135x Cheibriados, 97x Vehumet, 63x Makhleb, 53x Gozag, 44x Ashenzari, 43x Zin, 34x Okawaru, 27x Kikubaaqudgha, 23x Sif Muna, 21x Trog, 20x Uskayaw, 17x Ru, 15x Wu Jian, 14x Xom, 14x Hepliaklqana, 12x Dithmenos, 10x Qazlal, 9x Lugonu, 8x Jiyva, 7x, 5x Beogh, 4x Nemelex Xobeh, 2x Elyvilon, Yredelemnul,Fedhas

Players with a wide array of gods are able to get this rune. The games gives you all sorts of ways to deal with torment, including high-level necromancy spells, some of the gods you mention, other gods you didn't mention, and spells to help you ninja the rune without killing so much, etc.

It might be good to revisit how death curses work based what kinds of interesting challenge they pose, if any, but it's not good to start the discussion by vastly overstating their danger.

So perhaps near impossible is too extreme, but it's definitely very difficult. I wasn't referring to the torment aspect so much as the taking damage when you kill them. I wonder how many of those games listed utilized necromutation, which. I forgot to leave off the list. Necromutation isn't exactly an easy requirement to proceed. Chei and vehumet in there suggest that there is a push to be able to cast with less XP needed.

Perhaps a Zig more clearly illustrates the point I'm trying to make: If you hit a level filled with mummies, what choice do you really have to not have one of those three gods and/or necromutation? No matter how clever your strategy or play is, aside from avoiding the content, you'll be punished a lot for simply eliminating the threats.

svendre wrote:So perhaps near impossible is too extreme, but it's definitely very difficult. I wasn't referring to the torment aspect so much as the taking damage when you kill them. I wonder how many of those games listed utilized necromutation, which. I forgot to leave off the list. Necromutation isn't exactly an easy requirement to proceed. Chei and vehumet in there suggest that there is a push to be able to cast with less XP needed.

Perhaps a Zig more clearly illustrates the point I'm trying to make: If you hit a level filled with mummies, what choice do you really have to not have one of those three gods and/or necromutation? No matter how clever your strategy or play is, aside from avoiding the content, you'll be punished a lot for simply eliminating the threats.

Use fog, use any kind of summons, quaff lig for torment immunity before you immobomb them and cancel your way out of treeform afterward, use holy word, silence, use translocations or just teleport, buff up and ninja if you want, there's always aoe spells as a must-killdudes-everything fallback, but they really aren't needed.

There are a whole heap of tactics that it sounds like you're not using.

TombZig floors are best answered for normal dudes by just blinking past everything and leaving.

Don't Silence in Tomb. It will guarantee death.

Zin: Vitalization blocks many death curses; Sanctuary provides invulnerability for a while, but the initial blast can kill mummies and trigger death curses, potentially killing you, so use a bit earlier than you otherwise would.

Dupe. Apologies.

Dupe. Apologies.

svendre wrote:Perhaps a Zig more clearly illustrates the point I'm trying to make: If you hit a level filled with mummies, what choice do you really have to not have one of those three gods and/or necromutation? No matter how clever your strategy or play is, aside from avoiding the content, you'll be punished a lot for simply eliminating the threats.

I don't see how this illustrates your point when tomb is in no way comparable to a tomb themed zig floor

Death's Door together with controlled blink or ?blink is a better protection against Mummies than Necromutation, in Tomb and in Zigs. No need for special gods.

Majang wrote:Death's Door together with controlled blink or ?blink is a better protection against Mummies than Necromutation, in Tomb and in Zigs. No need for special gods.

Perhaps, I don't use Death's Door much to comment, but I would like to restate from my original post that tedious play is almost always an alternative:

"or without extremely tedious play constantly trying to retreat from the action to rest. On a level filled with torment and smiting, this is essentially stair dancing rammed down your throat."

Death's Door and controlled blink sounds like a real stair dance fest. I was under the impression that we weren't encouraged to play this way, at least evidenced that the stairs in tomb were all changed to try and prevent it.

CanOfWorms wrote:
svendre wrote:Perhaps a Zig more clearly illustrates the point I'm trying to make: If you hit a level filled with mummies, what choice do you really have to not have one of those three gods and/or necromutation? No matter how clever your strategy or play is, aside from avoiding the content, you'll be punished a lot for simply eliminating the threats.

I don't see how this illustrates your point when tomb is in no way comparable to a tomb themed zig floor

They both contain enough mummies that it can kill you to destroy them. They're difficult to ignore, unless you do as someone has already mentioned: blink past them all and skip the content. Even nonstop blinking, you might easily die to multiple torments and smites.

svendre wrote:If you hit a level filled with mummies, what choice do you really have to not have one of those three gods and/or necromutation? No matter how clever your strategy or play is, aside from avoiding the content, you'll be punished a lot for simply eliminating the threats.

Easy as pie!
It's time for Ololoev's guide to tomb:3.
Drink !haste.
Drink !resistance if you lack rF+ in tree form of if you are not worshipping Qaz.
Descend to W:3.
Read ?noise.
Walk southway.
If path blocked - cblink once southway.
- Now you may be tormented and smitten a bit, but... -
Drink !lignification
Read ?immo and kill somebody. In case of Qaz just a-c.

ololoev wrote:
svendre wrote:If you hit a level filled with mummies, what choice do you really have to not have one of those three gods and/or necromutation? No matter how clever your strategy or play is, aside from avoiding the content, you'll be punished a lot for simply eliminating the threats.

Easy as pie!
It's time for Ololoev's guide to tomb:3.
Drink !haste.
Drink !resistance if you lack rF+ in tree form of if you are not worshipping Qaz.
Descend to W:3.
Read ?noise.
Walk southway.
If path blocked - cblink once southway.
- Now you may be tormented and smitten a bit, but... -
Drink !lignification
Read ?immo and kill somebody. In case of Qaz just a-c.

So, you pull the whole level, and after you may have already been tormented a smitten, you become immune to torment (but not anything else), completely immobile.. and you wipe out the entire level without needing to quaff cancelation and blink to the stairs? Treeform does not appear to block damage from mummy curses when they die, or smites.. This seems a bit sketchy to me. I'd like to see it done without the three gods I've mentioned. I think from sheer running out of health you'd have to do several trips, meaning lots of cancellation potions and blink scrolls.

I think a simple run to the stairs, pull some up with you, cast silence (loop, loop, loop) would be a safer "tedious strategy".

svendre wrote:and you wipe out the entire level without needing to quaff cancelation and blink to the stairs?.

Usually yes. Sometimes things go wrong and I need to quaff cancel and blink mad, but it's okay. That's how I play crawl.

svendre wrote:lots of cancellation potions and blink scrolls.

Since you kill most W:3 denizens (or get killed) during debut, you do it only once. So you only need 1 !cancel and 1-3 ?blink.

svendre wrote:I think a simple run to the stairs, pull some up with you, cast silence (loop, loop, loop) would be a safer "tedious strategy".

BORING! Playing Crawl in the BA-BAH/KABOOM way is much more interesting. And leads to more options. Maybe I get too much exciement from doing wierd and spectacular things, not from simply winning the game.

svendre wrote:Death's Door and controlled blink sounds like a real stair dance fest. I was under the impression that we weren't encouraged to play this way, at least evidenced that the stairs in tomb were all changed to try and prevent it.

No, quite the opposite. If you are a caster with access to level-9 spells (Shatter is highly recommended against mummies), then DD may give you enough time to eliminate the whole T3 crowd. Blink to the hatch is just an insurance, in case there is still opposition when DD runs out. Vehumet helps a lot with this, if you have him, but a few potions of magic might also do the trick.

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